


all's well that ends well (to end up with you)

by piggy09



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 16:40:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20392834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: “You don’t have toapologize!” That last word is a squeak. Jester is fully into the top of her range. “Reani is super pretty and has a lot of cool magic and knows how to bake and make flower crowns and stuff, ofcourseyou wanted to kiss her, she’s definitely the best girl you could have possibly kissed, ever, and I’m really glad you guys fucked!”





	all's well that ends well (to end up with you)

Reani turns into a giant owl to leave, which continues to be dope as fuck. Professor Thaddeus would eat every single one of his feathers out of complete jealousy to watch Reani do a sick barrel roll in midair and then soar away over the mountaintops; also, Professor Thaddeus would probably be sad, since Reani is cool and he’d probably want to be her owl friend. But now Reani’s gone, so Professor Thaddeus can double suck it. Beau guesses.

She sits by the mouth of the cave and watches Reani get smaller and smaller and smaller as she flies away – until she’s regular-owl-sized and then smaller, small enough for Beau to crush between two fingers. Right as Reani is about to blink out there’s a jingling sound from behind Beau – and then the smell of burnt sugar – and then Jester’s voice, saying: “Oh, is Reani gone already? Like gone gone?”

“Yeah,” Beau says. Jester drops herself on the ground next to Beau, spreading out her skirts fussily so they’re all laid out right. Her tail whacks itself against Beau’s arm in its own familiar way.

“That sucks,” Jester says. And then: “Are you…sad? That she left?”

Beau tilts her head a little bit to look at Jester: the soft blue of her profile, the violet sparks of her eyes scanning the horizon for anything owl-shaped. Or maybe dick-shaped? Beau doesn’t actually know what Jester is looking for at all.

“Yeah,” Beau says, turning back to look at the endless mountains and all their endless fucking snow. “I mean, no. I mean yeah? I don’t know. She was cool.”

“Super cool, super cool.” Jester is tugging at her skirts again; it looks like she’s trying to get the pattern on her skirt to lie completely straight against the gross cold rocks they’re sitting on. Beau covers Jester’s hand with her hand so Jester can stop fussing, and she tries not to think too hard about it.

“Reani was really super cool, huh?” Jester’s hand is flat under Beau’s hand.

“The coolest,” Beau says agreeably. “I mean, besides the times she thought we might be evil and she’d have to kill us. That sucked.”

“Totally.”

“Really glad we didn’t end up having to fight her to the death or anything.”

“For sure for sure for sure.”

“Not that we wouldn’t have kicked her ass. Because we would have.”

“Yeah, yeah, definitely.”

Jester’s voice sounds a little high, a little funny. Beau tilts her head to look harder at her; she licks her dry lips, tries to feel out whether or not Jester is upset. “I’m sorry she left,” she says carefully. “Now you have to freak out about cupcakes by yourself, huh?”

“But I have all of you guys!” Jester says. Her voice is worse now: it’s doing that thing where it gets a little manic and high-pitched, the one where all the syllables start to blur together. “I mean Reani was so nice and so cool and so fun and I liked her a lot – obviously not as much as you liked her – but I like you a lot too, Beau, so even though I miss Reani I’m not totally and completely sad because I still have – you know – everybody.”

Beau takes a second to catch up to the end of this and then says: “Wait, what do you mean not as much as I – is that ‘cause I…” (she feels her cheeks heat up, what the _fuck_) (be _cool_, Beau) “like, ‘cause we made out?” (That wasn’t cool.)

“_Obviously_ it’s because you made out, Beau.”

“Okay, I’m sorry for doing it in front of all of you, it just seemed like, y’know, the _moment_, I didn’t want to—”

“You don’t have to _apologize!_” That last word is a squeak. Jester is fully into the top of her range. “Reani is super pretty and has a lot of cool magic and knows how to bake and make flower crowns and stuff, of _course_ you wanted to kiss her, she’s definitely the best girl you could have possibly kissed, ever, and I’m really glad you guys fucked!”

“Whoa whoa whoa hold the fuck u—”

Jester is squirming in place, and her tail keeps whacking Beau in the arm. “And I’m just sorry that she had to leave because now you’re stuck with the rest of us instead of going on adventures with Reani where she could turn into an owl and carry you around and probably never drop you or anything, ever, and you guys could make out and stuff and it would be fun! But instead you’re here with us and—”

Watching all of these syllables spill out of Jester’s mouth feels immense and terrible and panicky, like an avalanche. The only thought in Beau’s mind is _make it stop make it stop make it stop_ – and so she grabs Jester’s face in both hands. Hard. Jester makes a surprised squeak and stops talking. Her mouth is still partially open in a soft little _o_, and her eyes are shiny with tears. She looks so pretty when she cries; Beau just looks snotty and gross and terrible every single time.

“Hey,” she says softly. “Hey. Jessie. What’s wrong?”

Jester lets out a scoffing little laugh; it would almost be convincing if she wasn’t still crying a little bit. “Nothing is _wrong_, Beau.”

“You’re literally in tears.”

“It’s been a long week, okay, we fought a dragon and stuff.” Jester’s eyes wander away from Beau’s; one of her hands comes up, presses a palm to the back of Beau’s knuckles. Jester’s hands are soft and cold. Her fingers close shyly around the edges of Beau’s fingers.

“We didn’t fight the dragon,” Beau says. “We ran away from the dragon.”

“Yeah but it was still _scary_, Beau, I’m allowed to _cry_ about it.”

“Of course you’re—” Jester’s diverting. The sharp spark at the back of Beau’s brain that the Cobalt Soul tried so hard to light on fire is whispering: _liar_. _She’s lying_.

“Are you…” (fuck) “are you sad? About Reani leaving? We can go see her again any time, as long as Caleb has his ten million gold’s worth of chalk or whatever.”

Wrong. Wrong thing to say. Jester’s eyes close hard and her hand drops away from Beau’s hand. “No,” she says. She lifts up her hands to smear tears away from under her eyes – and Beau realizes that the fact that she’s still holding Jester’s face is stupid, actually, so stupid, and she drops it. Her hands feel empty; she closes them into fists in her lap.

“Did you…” and she’s talking to the sharp stone shape of her fists, now, she can’t look at Jester anymore. “Did you want to, like, hook up with her? You could’ve told me, I wouldn’t have, like…bros before hoes, man. Not that Reani’s a ho. Like, obviously she’s not. But – fuck. You know what I mean.”

“I didn’t want to hook up with Reani, Beau.” Jester shuffles around, folds up her knees to her chest and hugs them. Her tail wraps around her ankles.

“Jester.” Beau’s voice is pleading – she can’t help it, there’s an inconsolable wardrum in her chest banging out _fuckup fuckup fuckup you’re a fuckup_ and it’s making her panicked. She needs to hit something. She doesn’t need to hit something, she’s not going to hit something, she’s going to talk to Jester with her words, she wishes this conversation was a yeti she could punch in the face.

“Jester,” she says again. “Can you just – tell me? If I did something wrong I’m, I’m really sorry, I don’t – I don’t want to fuck things up with you, you’re kind of my best fuckin’ friend.” Her voice cracks on that last part, because she is the world’s absolute biggest fuckup.

Jester buries her face in her hands and says something muffled that Beau can’t catch – Beau takes the opportunity to scoot closer, to uncurl one of her hands from its fist and cup Jester’s shoulderblade with it. “Jess?”

Jester lets out a muffled scream into her hands.

“Jester.”

Then the entire world is blue, and when Beau refocuses her eyes she realizes that it’s because Jester’s face is right up close to her face and also Jester has smashed her mouth against Beau’s. It’s not a kiss so much as, like, emergency CPR – like Jester can push life into Beau if she just presses harder, if she just wants it enough.

Beau’s mind is just moving through _oh fuck Jester’s kissing me _to _oh fuck _that’s_ what she was upset about _to _oh fuck I really screwed up_ to _wait this is actually—_ and then Jester has leaned back, lower lip wobbling, eyes wide and terrible and earnest. She looks at Beau’s face the way she’s looked at it a thousand times – like she’s trying to memorize it, quickly, so she can paint it out later. Like Beau is a language she can decode. Like she knows everything.

Whatever she sees in Beau’s face must be the worst thing in the world, because her whole face crumples – and then she’s on her feet and running back into the caves, her boots scuffing against this same shitty rock.

Beau feels herself lifting a hand to touch her fingertips to her lower lip, like a blushing virgin in one of Jester’s smut books.

“_Fuck!_” she hisses to herself, and then she’s on her feet and running after Jester. She’s faster than Jester – they’ve figured this out over fights and battles and half-drunken races outside of taverns and Jester, Jester, Beau is such an idiot, Jester. All of these towns and cities and hours sleeping next to her, Jester, the weight of her head on Beau’s shoulder, the sparkling of her magic knitting Beau back together, Jester, always Jester, Jester’s face across the room when Beau leaned in to kiss Reani, _of course you want to kiss her, she’s definitely the best girl you could have possibly kissed—_

She burns a Step of the Wind to get out ahead of Jester in the tunnel; when Jester realizes she’s about to run into Beau she skids to a halt, heaving for breath, cheeks stained a queasy purple by the way her blood has rushed to her face. They stand there in the tunnel, and Jester’s foot hovers out behind her – and lands – and she takes a step back – and it looks like she’s about to start running backwards and Beau thinks _no_ with the strained urgency of a bleeding wound and she steps forward so Jester is between Beau and the wall and she cups Jester’s face in one hand – Jester, Jester, Jester – and she leans forward and kisses her.

It’s better this time. Partially this is because Beau’s thoughts are juddering and solidifying and starting to make sense, finally, and partially this is because when Beau started kissing her Jester made a small little animal noise and kissed her back.

So it’s good.

Jester’s hands scrabble urgently at Beau before latching around her neck; she sways in closer to Beau, still kissing her, shaking faintly at the edges. Beau hooks an arm around Jester’s hips to pull her closer, close enough that she can feel the faint frantic beating of Jester’s heart.

Then Jester stops kissing her – which _sucks_ – and buries her face against Beau’s shoulder. “I don’t want your _pity_, Beau,” she says, voice bubbling with tears. “I’m sorry I messed—”

“You don’t have my _pity_, Jester, come on,” Beau says. “You have…” and she can’t think of anything to say there that isn’t shitty and stupid and – well, fuck, just exactly like _Tusk Love_, like all the scenes that made Jester cry.

So. “You have me,” Beau mutters against one of Jester’s horns. “You’ve always had me, I just – look, I didn’t know that – I’m an idiot, okay? I’m an idiot and I really like kissing you and I want to do it again, if that’s cool with you, and if you don’t want me to kiss anyone else that’s cool too, and I’m sorry about Reani, I didn’t know that—”

Jester is laughing. It’s a wet snorting laugh; she lifts her face up from Beau’s shoulder and leans back, and Beau’s heart kicks up to triple speed at the way Jester’s cheeks are scrunched up. “You talk a lot,” Jester says, and then she grabs Beau’s face and kisses her again.

This time is even better. Beau can feel the edges of Jester’s teeth as her lips pull up into a smile; Jester keeps breaking the kiss so she can laugh a little bit, helplessly, and pull Beau in to kiss her again. And again and again and again.

“Okay wait,” Beau says breathlessly, (she kisses Jester again) “I just wanted to say that like” (again) “this is late, but” (again) “your magic is really good, and I didn’t mean to, like,” (again) “imply that you _aren’t_ a total magical badass,” (Jester nibbles at Beau’s lip a little bit this time and Beau loses her train of thought for a minute or so but it’s fine) “because you _are_ a total magical badass” (and she goes back to kissing Jester again really quick) “and I l—I like the way you turn into a giant eagle, and stuff. I don’t think that made any sense.”

“It made sense,” Jester says, leaning back against the wall; her tail is twirling dizzily behind her, and she looks thoroughly kissed and absolutely sparkling. Through sheer force of will and the discipline of the Cobalt Soul or whatever the fuck Beau manages to restrain herself and not kiss her again. Instead she watches Jester’s hands twitch nervously in front of her, before Beau reaches out and takes both of Jester’s hands in hers. They are so incredibly soft. They are so soft! Jester’s hands are so soft, and Beau is so stupid for thinking about this as much as she is.

“Beau?” Jester says quietly.

“Jester.”

“Um,” Jester says, “this was really nice, and everything, and you are a good kisser, and I like kissing you, but ummmm.” Her eyes are firmly lodged somewhere near her feet and her cheeks are back to being a blotchy purple color.

“What’s up?” Beau says. Suddenly her heart is a nervous rock, and it’s plummeting. Which is stupid. She has to stop being so stupid.

“You have to promise not to laugh,” Jester says. “If you laugh I’ll – I’ll turn you into a _squirrel_.”

“Please don’t turn me into a squirrel, Jess.”

Jester makes a weird head bobble that could mean _sure, Beau, I won’t turn you into a squirrel _or could mean _depends on the weather_. She sucks in a huge breath and then, in one frantic exhale, says: “Kissing you is good but I don’t really want to, like, _hook up_ or anything, especially since we still have to keep traveling together with everybody and probably rooming together, probably, and I was just wondering if maybe we could…date? Or something? And if not that’s totally cool and we can just have kissed one time and then we can go back to being friends which is also good, Beau, I like being your friend, I was just wondering.” She pulls in another breath. “So. Yeah.”

“Uh,” Beau says, and then “wait, hold on, don’t say anything, I’m just – uh. I don’t.” She feels her cheeks heating, which, fuck. She takes a deep breath and says, at a speed Jester would be proud of: “I don’t really have a _ton_ of experience dating and I don’t want to be a bad girlfriend because I’m pretty sure I’d be a really shitty girlfriend and I don’t want you to have a shitty girlfriend. Like, I want to be your girlfriend, holy shit, but mostly my experiences are like…one night stands or getting thrown in jail together and then never talking again. And I don’t want to never talk to you again, which isn’t even, like, a sentence, but – yeah. I don’t want to screw this up, you know?”

Jester lightly tugs one of her hands free from Beau’s grip and touches her fingertips to Beau’s cheekbone. “Beau,” she says quietly, “if we ever end up in jail together I will Dimension Door us right out of there, together. I won’t leave you alone there. Okay?”

_Don’t cry_, Beau tells herself. _You are a stone cold motherfucker. Don’t cry_ and then she’s crying, but only a little bit. “Okay,” she tells Jester. “Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let’s – be girlfriends. If you’re chill with that.”

“I am totally chill with that,” Jester says. “Really really chill. Ice cold. Oh my gosh. Beau, does that mean I’m your _girlfriend?_”

“I’m pretty sure that’s what I just—”

Jester knocks her foot against Beau’s shin.

“_Ow_, fuck. I mean, yeah, you’re my girlfriend. We’re girlfriends. I’m your girlfriend. Wow! Okay, yeah, I see what you were – holy shit. Yeah. Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Jester says, a grin pulling up the edges of her mouth. “Yeah!”

“Hey,” Beau says. “Can I, uh, can I…can we kiss again? Is that cool? Or is there like a one-a-day limit on that, ‘cause if so I respect your boundaries and—”

Jester kisses her again. With Jester’s mouth against hers, Beau can feel that they’re both smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> My heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue  
All's well that ends well to end up with you  
Swear to be overdramatic and true to my lover  
And you'll save all your dirtiest jokes for me  
And at every table, I'll save you a seat, lover
> 
> Can I go where you go?  
Can we always be this close forever and ever?  
And ah, take me out, and take me home (Forever and ever)  
You're my, my, my, my lover  
\--"Lover," Taylor Swift
> 
> Thanks, Miss Swift, for this Beau/Jester anthem that you absolutely intentionally wrote on purpose. We (the gays) appreciate it.
> 
> And thank YOU for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


End file.
